Tories unveil social care revamp in manifesto

The Conservatives launch their manifesto Thursday, with Prime Minister Theresa May promising to “get to grips with the great challenges of our time, starting with social care.”

The Tories are the last of the main British parties to unveil their manifesto ahead of the general election on June 8. It has the title “Forward, Together” — which has echoes of May’s predecessor David Cameron’s “All In This Together” slogan and new French President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche movement.

An excerpt sent to journalists ahead of the launch makes repeated mentions of May’s new mantra “strong and stable,” which the Tories contrast with the “backward-looking chaos” of a government led by Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn.

In the foreword, May writes: “The next five years are the most challenging that Britain has faced in my lifetime. Brexit will define us: our place in the world, our economic security and our future prosperity.”

It promises to “address the fundamental unfairness at the heart of Britain’s elderly care system and tackle the long-term challenges of an aging society.

“At the moment, elderly people in need of care too often face high costs and inadequate treatment, as well as the risk of seeing the assets they built up over a lifetime deplete to virtually nothing. This is something successive governments have failed to tackle, leaving a system that is not working for hundreds of thousands of people receiving care or the organizations providing it.”

Under the plans, people with more than £100,000 in assets will have to pay for their own elderly care, rather than relying on local councils to cover the costs of visits by care workers.

At present, people have to pay for social care at home if they have assets of more than £23,500, but that excludes the value of their home. Under the new policy, people will have to pay for social care only if they have wealth of more than £100,000 — but the value of their home will be included as well.

Labour criticized the plans and accused the Tories of “letting older and vulnerable people down.”

Barbara Keeley, Labour’s shadow mental health minister, said, “You can’t trust the Tories’ promises on social care. In their last manifesto they promised a cap on care costs. But they broke their promise.

“While the Tories offer more of the same failure and broken promises, Labour has pledged action. We’ll increase social care budgets by £8 billion over the lifetime of the parliament, including an additional £1 billion for the first year.”

According to the BBC, the Conservative manifesto will also promise further measures to curb immigration, including firms being asked to pay more to hire migrant workers.

Under the manifesto plans, the Immigration Skills Charge, which was introduced in April and is paid by firms who hire workers from outside the European Economic Area, will be doubled from £1,000 to £2,000 per employee per year.

Money raised will go toward skills training for British workers. Non-EU migrants will also have to pay more to use the NHS, the Tories say.

May has pledged to bring immigration levels down to the tens of thousands, a long-term Tory target that has never been met.

Len

Alzheimer’s disease induces dependence and can affect rich as well as poor people and very often middle class workers have save funds during their life to acquire a pleasant home for their retirement. As far as this disease does not make difference between the amounts of money the patients have at the end of their life, it is difficult to understand how a government can propose to tax unfortunate individuals who have had the misfortune to combine getting old as well as Alzheimer’s disease. One could imagine that a compassionate society would tend to protect more these patients until an efficient treatment has been found.